Electronic equipment involving semiconductive devices are essential for many modern applications. Technological advances in materials and design have produced generations of semiconductive devices where each generation has smaller and more complex circuits than the previous generation. In the course of advancement and innovation, functional density (i.e., the number of interconnected devices per chip area) has generally increased while geometric size (i.e., the smallest component that can be created using a fabrication process) has decreased. Such advances have increased the complexity of processing and manufacturing semiconductive devices.
Micro-electro mechanical system (MEMS) devices have been recently developed and are also commonly involved in electronic equipment. The MEMS device is a micro-sized device, usually in a range from less than 1 micron to several millimeters in size. The MEMS device includes fabrication using semiconductive materials to form mechanical and electrical features. The MEMS device may include a number of elements (e.g., stationary or movable elements) for achieving electro-mechanical functionality. For many applications, the MEMS device is electrically connected to external circuitry in order to form complete MEMS systems. Commonly, the connections are formed by wire bonding. MEMS devices are widely used in various applications. MEMS applications include gas detectors, pressure sensors, printer nozzles, or the like. Moreover, MEMS applications are extended to optical applications, such as movable mirrors, and radio frequency (RF) applications, such as RF switches or the like.
As technologies evolve, designs for devices become more complicated in view of smaller dimensions and an increase of functionality and the amount of circuitries. Numerous manufacturing operations are implemented within such a small and high performance semiconductor device. The manufacturing of the semiconductor device in a miniaturized scale becomes more complicated, and the increase in complexity of manufacturing may cause deficiencies such as high yield loss, poor reliability of the electrical interconnection, warpage and other problems. Therefore, there is a continuous need to modify the structure and manufacturing method of the devices in the electronic equipment in order to improve the device performance as well as reduce manufacturing cost and processing time.